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Today is February 22nd. If my father, John, was still alive we would be celebrating his 76th Birthday today. I am sure, like many, we miss those close to us on their birthdays after they have passed on.

Today I think about the good times with my father and the things he acheived in his life to make his birthday a day of celebration and not one of sadness - that is not what he would have wanted. He loved technology and would be bowled over to know that he has his part in the creation of GoneNotGone.

Tonight I will enjoy one of his favourite meals, Shepherd's Pie, with my family and I will tell some stories of my father to my son John who never had the chance to meet the grandfather he was named after and as Eleanor grows up she too will learn more about him.

Of course, it would have been great if he could tell them stories in his own voice, a chance he never had. However, through GoneNotGone, everyone else now has that opportunity.

The picture which accompanies this article is of John and our family dog, Snowy. Both of whom had their part in the creation of GoneNotGone. Sign up today so that your family can have more than just photos for memories.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. The origin of Valentine's Day is to honour two Christian martyrs called Valentine on February 14th.

However Valentine's day did not have any association with love and romance until a poem was published by Chaucer (appropriately) in the 14th Century entitled "The Parliament of Fowls"; which contained the following lines about finding a mate:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

Fast forward to the late 18th century and "The Young Man's Valentine Writer" was published containing verse to be copied and sent to your potential mate. With the arrival of the post service in England, it became fashionable to send Valentine's cards and the origins of Valentine's Day as we know it were set.

While today it is typically a celebration of love and romance, back in Norfolk, England "Jack Valentine" will knock on the doors of houses and leave sweets and presents for children. Many children are scared of this character in a celebration which is almost the opposite of Halloween.

We all hear that love is eternal, but sadly we are not. However you can send messages on Valentine's Day to your loved one whether you are here or not and make love seem eternal.

Between now and the end of the month, use the discount code, "LOVEIT" when you check out and you will receive a 14% discount.

We have just entered the Lunar New Year and Happy New Year to those celebrating.

2017 is the year of the Rooster (the founder of GoneNotGone was born in the year of the Rooster too). New Years are always a time for a celebration and to look ahead, make our plans and hopefully stick to them. Try not to put off until tomorrow what can be done today. Make a list of goals for the year, print them out and place somewhere visible. Be sure to prioitize and as the year progresses mark off what you achieve. If you get ahead of yourself, find a way to celebrate.

As it is the Lunar New Year, here is a list of the years and their associated animals, check to see what is your year!

Rat: 2008, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948, 1936, 1924

Ox: 2009, 1997, 1985, 1973, 1961, 1949, 1937, 1925

Tiger: 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926

Rabbit: 2011, 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963, 1951, 1939, 1927

Dragon: 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1964, 1952, 1940, 1928

Snake: 2013, 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941, 1929

Horse: 2014, 2002, 1990, 1978, 1966, 1954, 1942, 1930

Sheep: 2015, 2003, 1991, 1979, 1967, 1955, 1943, 1931

Monkey: 2016, 2004, 1992, 1980, 1968, 1956, 1944, 1932

Rooster: 2017, 2005, 1993, 1981, 1969, 1957, 1945, 1933

Dog: 2018, 2006, 1994, 1982, 1970, 1958, 1946, 1934

Pig: 2019, 2007, 1995, 1983, 1971, 1959, 1947, 1935

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, take 12% off at checkout with code LUNA12

It is not uncommon to hear a phrase begin with "It is never too late...", but the problem is that "Too late" may sometimes catch us unawhere. For life planning we need to think "It is Never Too Early", as we can always change something, but we never know just when "Too Late" may be.

Though, by human nature, we tend to put off some of the most important things in our lives - such as wills; with the risk that our desires and wishes may not be met. If you have a will it can be changed, so it is never too early to make a will.

Likewise it is never too early for a service like GoneNotGone. It is designed to bring value, compassion and relief. Put it off and you may miss an opportunity to have done something very special for those close to you.

So whilst it is the weekend, think about your future and prepare for it, bacause it is not too early to do so.

We will be sending out regular Newsletters to anyone who subscribes to us. There is a sign up box on the home page now, just above the address and map. Of course you can always unsubscribe. We will include some special offers only in the Newsletter.

2. PDF option is fully implemented in Silver, Gold and Platinum packages. This is great for scanned documents, in particular hand written notes.

3. Full compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA"), please see https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule for more details.

We have heard a few times that some more mature people prefer to write letters, whereas the younger generation want everything electronically. The compromise we recommend is to scan the written letters and save as a pdf which can be uploaded via the photo option.

We will have a small website redesign coming soon based on user feedback, we will continue to improve our website in response to user requests.

We are also doubling the allowable size of uploaded videos. We cannot accept full HD videos for the recommended 2 minute maximum as the storage costs are too high. If there is sufficient demand for this then we will add another layer of service to include it. We are working on video compression to keep resolution as high as we can.

Come visit us! We have a small studio for setting up messages. We can scan letters if required and even have a VHS player and video capture software for old videos; just drop a request to customerservice@gonenotgone.com please.

We are pleased to announce that Version 0.9 is available as a Beta test version before we shortly release our full version. This is a working release with some issues as identified below. We hope you enjoy it, please let us know if you do or do not, feedback can be submitted to feedback@gonenotgone.com.

As this is a Beta release, some bugs may crop up which we do not know about; despite the testing which we have done. We apologise for these issues and please let us know so we can fix them and/or supply a workaround, again please use feedback@gonenotgone.com.

We have been testing on multiple platforms over the past few weeks and the following issues are known:

Cannot record audio directly on iPad, iPhone and Mac devices. You can still upload audio files you have created elsewhere. We are working on fixing these issues, the iPad and iPhone issues will most likely be completely solved when we release a dedicated application.

Video appears to work on Chromebooks, but for some reason the audio channel gets lost. Again you can still upload video from elsewhere.

Cannot record video directly on Mac computers, we are working on this, but again you can upload video files from elsewhere.

We have not yet tested on Linux, this will happen in the next couple of weeks before our full release.

Direct video capture from Android and IOS (iPhone/iPad) currently disabled due to native files sizes, we are looking into this and the possibility to use post-upload compression.